Uganda

Culture Name

Ugandan

Orientation

Identification.
Lake Kyoga serves as a rough boundary between Bantu speakers in the south
and Nilotic and Central Sudanic language speakers in the north. Despite
the division between north and south in political affairs, this linguistic
boundary actually runs roughly from northwest to southeast, near the
course of the Nile. However, many Ugandans live among people who speak
different languages, especially in rural areas. Some sources describe
regional variation in terms of physical characteristics, clothing, bodily
adornment, and mannerisms, but others claim that those differences are
disappearing.

Location and Geography.
Bantu speakers probably entered southern Uganda by the end of the first
millennium. They had developed centralized kingdoms by the fifteenth or
sixteenth century, and after independence from British rule in 1962, Bantu
speakers constituted roughly two-thirds of the population. They are
classified as either Eastern Lacustrine or Western Lacustrine Bantu. The
Eastern Lacustrine Bantu speakers include the Baganda people whose
language is Luganda, the Basoga, and many smaller societies in Uganda,
Tanzania, and Kenya. The Western Lacustrine Bantu speakers include the
Banyoro, the Bastoro, the Banyankole, and several smaller populations in
Uganda.

Nilotic language speakers probably entered the area from the north
beginning about
C.E.
1000. Thought to be the first cattle-herding people in the area, they
also relied on crop cultivation. The largest Nilotic populations in Uganda
are the Iteso and Karamojong ethnic groups, who speak Eastern Nilotic
languages, and the Acholi, Langi, and Alur, who speak Western Nilotic
languages. Central Sudanic languages, which arrived in Uganda from the
north over a period of centuries, are spoken by the Lugbara, the Madi, and
a few small groups in the northwestern part of the country.

Demography.
The population was about twenty-three million in mid-1999. The Eastern
Lacustrine Bantu include the Baganda, the Basoga, and the Bagisu. The
Baganda, the largest ethnic group, account for about 17 percent of the
population, or approximately 3.9 million people. The second largest ethnic
group, the Basoga, make up about 8 percent of the population, or 1.8
million people, while the Bagisu constitute roughly 5 percent of the
population, or just over a million people. The Western Lacustrine
Bantu—the Banyoro, Batoro, and Banyankole people—probably
constitute around 3 percent of the population, or 700,000 people each.

The Eastern Nilotic language groups include the Karamojong cluster, the
Iteso and the Kakwa. The Karamojong account for around 12 percent of the
population (2.8 million), the Iteso amount to about 8 percent (1.8
million), and the Kakwa constitute 1 percent (about 230,000). The Western
Nilotic language groups include the Langi and Acholi as well as the Alur.
Together they account for roughly 15 percent of the population, or about
3.4 million people, with the Langi contributing 6 percent (1.4 million),
the Acholi 4 percent (900,000), and the Alur probably about 2 percent
(460,000).

Central Sudanic languages are spoken by about 6 percent of the population,
mostly in the northwest. The Lugbara (roughly 3.8 percent of the total, or
870,000) and the Madi (roughly 1.2 per cent, or 275,000) are the largest
of these groups, representing the southeastern corner of a belt of Central
Sudanic language speakers stretching from Chad to Sudan.

About 10,000 Ugandans of Sudanese descent are classified as Nubians. They
are descendants of Sudanese military recruits who came in the late
nineteenth century as part of the colonial army. Rwandans, who constituted
almost 6 percent of the

Uganda

population (more than one million) in the late 1950s, included Hutu and
Tutsi groups. The government attempted to limit Rwandan influence by
restricting those who lacked Ugandan citizenship to refugee camps and
expelling some to Tanzania. In the late 1980s, more than 120,000 Rwandans
were recognized as refugees. Asians, who in the 1969 census amounted to
some seventy thousand people, mainly of Indian and Pakistani descent, were
officially considered foreigners despite the fact that more than half were
born in Uganda. After independence and especially when the Obote
government threatened to nationalize many industries in 1969, Asians
exported much of their wealth and were accused of graft and tax evasion.
President Idi Amin deported about seventy thousand Asians in 1972, and
only a few returned in the 1980s to claim their expropriated land,
buildings, factories, and estates. In the 1990s, there were about ten
thousand Asians in the country.

Linguistic Affiliation.
Introduced by the British in the late nineteenth century, English was the
language of colonial administration. After independence, it became the
official language, used in government, commerce, and education. Official
publications and most major newspapers appear in English, which often is
spoken on radio and television. Most residents speak at least one African
language. Swahili and Arabic also are widely spoken.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation.
After independence in 1962, ending a period of colonization that began in
1885, there was little indication that the country was headed for social
and political upheaval. Instead, Uganda appeared to be a model of
stability and progress. It had no white settler class attempting to
monopolize the cash crop economy, and there was no legacy of conflict. It
was the African producers who grew the cotton and coffee that brought a
higher standard of living, financed education, and led to high
expectations for the future.

Independence arrived without a national struggle against the British, who
devised a timetable for withdrawal before local groups had organized a
nationalist movement. This near absence of nationalism among the
country's ethnic groups led to a series of political compromises.

National Identity.
Ethnic and religious divisions as well as historical emnities and
rivalries contributed to the country's disintegration in the 1970s.
There was a wide gulf between Nilotic speakers in the north and Bantu
speakers in the south and an economic division between pastoralists in the
drier rangelands of the west and north, and agriculturists, in the
better-watered highland and lakeside regions. There was also a historical
division between the centralized and sometimes despotic rule of the
ancient African kingdoms and the kinship-based politics elsewhere. The
kingdoms were often at odds in regard to the control of land. During the
colonial period, the south had railways, cash crops, a system of Christian
mission education, and the seat of government, seemingly at the expense of
other regions. There also were religious groups that had lost ground to
rivals in the past, for example, the domination of Muslims at the end of
the nineteenth century by Christians allied to British colonialism. All
these divisions precluded the formation of a national culture.

Ethnic Relations.
After independence, there were conflicting local nationalisms. The
Buganda's large population, extensive territory in the favored
south, and self-proclaimed superiority created a backlash among other
Ugandan peoples. Nubians shared little sense of identification with other
groups. The closely related peoples of nearby Zaire and the Sudan soon
became embroiled in civil wars in the 1960s and 1970s, drawing in
ethnically related Ugandans. Today relations are relatively harmonious.
However, suspicion remains with the president believing to favor certain
groups from the west of the country over others.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life.
Most people, except a few who live in urban centers, produce their own
food. Most people eat two meals a day: lunch and supper. Breakfast is
often a cup of tea or porridge. Meals are prepared by women and girls; men
and boys age twelve and above do not sit in the kitchen, which is separate
from the main house. Cooking usually is done on an open wood fire. Popular
dishes include
matoke
(a staple made from bananas), millet bread, cassava (tapioca or manioc),
sweet potatoes, chicken and beef stews, and freshwater fish. Other foods
include white potatoes, yams, corn, cabbage, pumpkin, tomatoes, millet,
peas, sorghum, beans, groundnuts (peanuts), goat meat, and milk. Oranges,
papayas, lemons, and pineapples also are grown and consumed. The national
drink is
waragi
, a banana gin. Restaurants in large population centers, such as Kampala
(the capital), serve local foods.

Basic Economy.
Most food is produced domestically. Uganda exports various foodstuffs,
including fish and fish products, corn, coffee, and tea. The environment
provides good grazing land for cattle, sheep, and goats. Agriculture is
the most important sector of the economy, employing over 80 percent of the
workforce. Much production is organized by farmers' cooperatives.
Smallholder farmers predominated in the 1960s and 1970s but declined as a
result of civil conflict. In the 1980s, the government provided aid to
farmers, and by the middle of the decade nearly a hundred ranches had been
restocked with cattle.

Lakes, rivers and swamps cover about 20 percent of the land surface, and
fishing is an important rural industry. The basic currency is the
shilling.

Land Tenure and Property.
At independence, the country was a patchwork of district administrations
subdivided into counties and consolidated into

Grand Mosque of Kampala. Roughly 15 percent of Ugandans are Muslims

provinces. As a result of a treaty with the British in 1900, Uganda
retained its monarchy together with a modified version of its government
and a distinctive form of quasi-freehold land tenure. Land was divided
between the protectorate government and the kabaka (king), chiefs, and
other tribal notables. This
mailo
land quickly became an important element in the colonial farming economy.

Uganda has a long history of diverse laws and social systems governing
land tenure. Since the promulgation of the Land Reform decree of 1975,
only two systems of land tenure exist (leasehold and customary tenure),
but in practice a complex mixture of systems (including customary,
leasehold, and freehold) continue to exist. The government attempted to
simplify and unify the land tenure system. A major development in that
process has been the inclusion of land tenure in the constitution of 1995.
However, issues such as women's right to own land require further
consideration.

Commercial Activities.
The major goods and services produced for sale are foodstuffs and cash
crops for exportation, with coffee as the major export crop. Uganda
escaped widespread famine in the late 1970s and 1980s because many people,
including urban residents, resorted to subsistence cultivation. Both
commercial and subsistence farming operated
in the monetary and nonmonetary sectors, presenting the government with
problems of organization and taxation. By the late 1980s, government
reports estimated that about 44 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)
originated outside the monetary economy. Most nonmonetary activity was
agricultural.

Major Industries.
When the present government seized power in 1986, industrial production
was negligible, consisting mostly of the processing of crops and the
production of textiles, wood and paper products, cement, and chemicals.
Industry was a small part of GDP in the late 1980s, operating at
approximately one-third of the level of the early 1970s. Under Museveni,
there has been some industrial rejuvenation, although this has amounted to
not much more than the repair of damage done during the civil war to the
industrial infrastructure. The sugar industry was rehabilitated through
joint ventures involving the private sector and the government. By the
1990s there was a refining capacity of at least 140,000 tons of sugar
annually. Other rehabilitated industries include beer brewing, tobacco,
cotton, and cement. About 4 percent of adults worked in industry by the
1990s. During the 1990s, industrial growth was 13.2 percent.

Trade.
In 1998, the country exported products worth $575 million. The main
export commodities were coffee (54 percent of the total value), gold, fish
and fish products, cotton, tea, and corn. The countries receiving most of
these products were Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.
The main imports include chemicals, basic manufactured goods, machinery,
and transport equipment.

Division of Labor.
In the mid-1990s the labor force was estimated to be about 8.5 million,
with more than 85 percent working in agriculture, 4 percent in industry,
and 10 percent in the services sector. Jobs are allocated according to
ability and preference.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes.
Although there are no castes, there is a relatively high degree of social
inequality. In the mid-1990s, 55 percent of the population lived below the
poverty line. The top 10 percent owned about one-third of the available
wealth, while the bottom 10 percent owned 3 percent. Wealth distribution
is governed by class position. The richest people live mostly in the
capital, Kampala.

Symbols of Social Stratification.
Social stratification is governed primarily by level of education and
status derived primarily from employment. Among the elites, English is the
language of communication, and these people dress in a modern Western
fashion. Others tend to wear traditional dress.

Political Life

Government.
Under the constitution of 1995, legislative power is in the hands of a
unicameral parliament (the National Resistance Council) with 276 members
(214 elected directly and 62 appointed). Executive powers are held by the
president, who is directly elected for a five-year term. On coming to
power in 1986, the government introduced "no-party"
democracy known as the "movement system" with a national
network extending from the capital to the rural areas. Only one political
organization, formerly the National Resistance Movement (or NRM) and now
known as the "Movement," is recognized; it is the party of
President Museveni. Among the parties that exist but are not allowed to
sponsor candidates, the most important are the Ugandan People's
Congress (UPC), the Democratic Party (DP), and the Conservative Party
(CP).

Leadership and Political Officials.
It is alleged that one of the main criteria for advancement in the
current government is whether an individual fought in President
Museveni's guerrilla army, which was instrumental in bringing the
regime to power in 1986. Those people are said to have achieved their
positions through a combination of hard work, influence peddling, and
corruption.

Social Problems and Control.
After the victory of the National Resistance Army (NRA) in 1986, the NRA
assumed responsibility for internal security. The police force was
reorganized and, together with other internal security organs, began to
enforce law and order in all districts except those experiencing rebel
activity. There are two continuing civil wars against the
"Lord's Resistance Army" and against guerrillas based
in the Sudan. In 1995, the government established a legal system based on
English common law and customary law. There is a court of appeal and a
high court, both with judges appointed by the president. The most common
crimes are theft and, in some parts of the country, banditry.

Military Activity.
Uganda has an army, a navy, and an air force. The NRA has about seventy
thousand troops. Recruitment is voluntary; there is no fixed term of
service, and both men and women serve. In 1999, Ugandan military forces
supported the rebel forces in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.

Women preparing food in Kampala. All meals are prepared by women in
Uganda; boys over age twelve are banned from the kitchen.

Social Welfare and Change Programs

In 1987, the government launched a four-year Rehabilitation and
Development Plan to restore the nation's productive capacity,
especially in industry and agriculture, and rehabilitate the social and
economic infrastructure. The plan targeted industrial and agricultural
production, transportation, and electricity and water services,
envisioning an annual 5 percent growth rate. Transportation would receive
the major share of funding, followed by agriculture, industry and tourism,
social infrastructure, and mining and energy. Although the international
financial community provided debt rescheduling and new loans, the level of
economic recovery was modest. Improved security and private sector
development contributed to economic growth and the rehabilitation of the
social infrastructure in the 1990s, but external shocks, an overvalued
currency, and high government spending limited economic progress.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations

Political conflict and the near disintegration of the state under Milton
Obote and Idi Amin in the 1970s and early 1980s, led to the incorporation
of autonomous self-help organizations and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs). Foreign and indigenous NGOs concerned with developmental, social,
and political goals have flooded Uganda since the mid-1980s. In general,
NGOs have been effective in addressing the needs of service provision and
alleviating poverty. For groups of traditionally disadvantaged people such
as physically disabled persons and women, NGOs have provided guaranteed
political representation at every level of the society.

Gender Roles and Statuses

Division of Labor by Gender.
Traditionally, women's roles were subordinate to those of men
despite the substantial economic and social responsibilities of women in
traditional Ugandan societies. Women were taught to accede to the wishes
of their fathers, brothers, husbands, and other men and to demonstrate
their subordination to men in public life. Into the 1990s, women in rural
areas of Buganda were expected to kneel when speaking to a man. However,
women had the primary responsibility for child care and subsistence
agriculture while contributing to cash crop agriculture. Many Ugandans
recognized women as important religious leaders who sometimes had led
revolts that

The people of Kalunga village celebrate the victory of Kintu Musoke
in the 1994 nonpartisan general election in Uganda.

overthrew the political order dominated by men. In some areas, women
could own land, influence crucial political decisions made by men, and
cultivate cash crops.

The Relative Status of Women and Men.
In the 1970s and 1980s, political violence had a heavy toll on women.
Economic hardship was felt in the home, where women and children lacked
the economic opportunities available to most men. Women's work
became more time-consuming, and the erosion of public services and
infrastructure reduced access to schools, hospitals, and markets. However,
some Ugandan women believed that the war years strengthened their position
in society, and the Museveni government has pledged to eliminate
discrimination against women. During the civil war, women were active in
the NRA. The government decreed that one women would represent each
district on the National Resistance Council, and the government owned
Uganda Commercial Bank established a rural credit plan to make farm loans
available to women.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage.
Family prosperity in rural areas involves the acquisition of wives, which
is accomplished through the exchange of bridewealth. Since the 1950s a
ceiling on bridewealth has been set at five cows and a similar number of
goats. The payment of bridewealth is connected to the fact that men
"rule" women. Polygynous marriages have reinforced some
aspects of male dominance but also have given women an arena for
cooperating to oppose male dominance. A man may grant his senior wife
"male" status, allowing her to behave as an equal toward men
and as a superior toward his other wives. However, polygynous marriages
have left some wives without legal rights to inheritance after divorce or
widowhood.

Domestic Unit.
The extended family is augmented by a kin group. Men have authority in
the family; household tasks are divided among women and older girls. Women
are economically dependent on the male next of kin (husband, father, or
brother). Dependence on men deprives women of influence in family and
community matters, and ties them to male relationships for sustenance and
the survival of their children.

Inheritance.
Land reform is a continuing aspect of constitutional debate. Suggestions
for a new land policy were part of the draft constitution submitted to the
president of the Constitutional Commission in late 1992, though little
consideration had been given to the issue of women's right to own
and

A woman winnowing grain in the Virunga National Park. More than 80
percent of the workforce is employed in agriculture.

inherit land. Although women make a significant contribution in
agriculture, their tenure rights are fragile. The determination and
protection of property rights have become important issues as a result of
civil war and the impact of AIDS. However, the state's legal stand
on inheritance recognizes the devolution of property through statutory as
well as customary law.

According to the law, a wife equally with a husband is entitled to 15
percent of the spouse's estate after death. The practice, though,
is that in the majority of cases a man inherits all of his wife's
property, while culture dictates that a woman does not inherit from her
husband at all. In other words, regarding inheritance, where there is
conflict between cultural unwritten law and the written modern law, the
cultural laws tend to take precedence.

Kin Groups.
For many people, clan, lineage, and marriage provide the framework of
daily life and access to the most significant resources. Farming is
largely a family enterprise, and land and labor are available primarily
through kin.

Socialization

Infant Care.
Virtually all infant care is undertaken by women and older girls at home.

Child Rearing and Education.
Mothers bore an average of over seven children in the late 1990s, and the
use of family planning is low. The death of children is commonplace, with
an estimated ninety deaths per one thousand live births. Boys are more
likely to be educated to the primary and secondary levels than are girls.
Among the 62 percent of the population that is literate, nearly
three-quarters are men.

Higher Education.
Established in 1922, Makerere University in Kampala was the first college
in East Africa. Its primary aim was to train people for government
employment. In the 1980s, it expanded to include colleges of liberal arts
and medicine serving more than five thousand students. In the early 1990s,
there were about nine thousand students. The Islamic University at Mbale,
financed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, opened in 1988.
This college provides Islamic educational services primarily to
English-speaking students from African countries. In 1989, a second
national university campus opened in Mbarara, with a curriculum designed
to serve rural development needs. Development plans for higher education
rely largely on international and private donors. Most residents value
higher education, perceiving it as an essential aspect of national
development.

Etiquette

Shaking hands is the normal form of greeting. Casual dress is considered
appropriate in the daytime and evening. It is customary to give waiters
and taxi drivers a 10 percent tip. Etiquette is important at family meals.
When a meal is ready, all the members of the household wash their hands
and sit on floor mats. Visitors and neighbors who drop in are expected to
join the family at a meal. Normally a short prayer is said before the
family starts eating. During the meal, children talk only when asked a
question. It is considered impolite to leave the room while others are
eating. Leaning on the left hand or stretching one's legs at a meal
is a sign of disrespect. When the meal is finished, everyone in turn gives
a compliment to the mother.

Religion

Religious Beliefs.
One-third of the population is Roman Catholic, one-third is Protestant,
and 16 percent is Muslim; 18 percent believe in local religions, including
various millenarian religions. World religions and local religions have
coexisted for more than a century, and many people have established a set
of beliefs about the nature of the universe by combining elements of both
types. There is a proliferation of religious discourses centering on
spirits, spirit possession, and witchcraft.

Religious Practitioners.
Religious identity has economic and political implications: church
membership has influenced opportunities for education, employment, and
social advancement. Religious practitioners thus are expected to provide a
range of benefits for their followers. Leaders of indigenous religions
reinforce group solidarity by providing elements necessary for societal
survival: remembrance of ancestors, means of settling disputes, and
recognition of individual achievement. Another social function of
religious practitioners is helping people cope with pain, suffering, and
defeat by providing an explanation of their causes. Religious beliefs and
practices serve political aims by bolstering the authority of temporal
rulers and allowing new leaders to mobilize political power and implement
political change.

Rituals and Holy Places.
In Bantu-speaking societies, many local religions include a belief in a
creator God. Most local religions involve beliefs in ancestral and other
spirits, and people offer prayers and sacrifices to symbolize respect for
the dead and maintain proper relationships among the living. Mbandwa
mediators act on behalf of other believers, using trance or hypnosis and
offering sacrifice and prayer to beseech the spirit world on behalf of the
living.

Uganda has followers of Christianity, Islam, and African traditional
religions. Ugandan Muslims make pilgrimages to Mecca when they can.
Followers of African religions tend to establish shrines to various local
gods and spirits in a variety of locations.

Death and the Afterlife.
Death is sometimes interpreted in the idiom of witchcraft. A disease or
other cause of death may not be considered the true cause. At a burial, if
the relatives suspect someone of having caused the deceased
person's death, a spirit medium may call up the spirit of the
deceased and ask who really killed him or her.

Medicine and Health Care

Health services deteriorated in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of
government neglect, violence, and civil war. In the 1990s, measles,
respiratory tract infections, and gastro enteritis caused one-half of all
deaths attributed to illness, and malaria, AIDS, anemia, tetanus, whooping
cough, and respiratory tract infections also claimed many lives. Infant
mortality was often caused by low birth weight, premature birth, or
neonatal tetanus. The entire health care system was served by less than a
thousand doctors in the 1990s. Care facilities included community health
centers, maternity clinics, dispensaries, leprosy centers, and aid posts.
Today there is at least one hospital in each district except the southern
district of Rakai. In the sparsely populated northern districts, people
sometimes travel long distances to receive medical care, and facilities
are inferior to those in the south. Those who live far from or cannot
afford modern health care depend on traditional care. Women are prominent
among traditional healers.

The Arts and Humanities

Support for the Arts.
Most artists are self-supporting as there is virtually no state support.
Small-scale, local initiatives take place, but it has been

A farm with terraced fields near Kibale. Coffee, cotton, tea, and
corn are among the most common agriculture exports.

difficult to establish viable sectors because of the disruptions caused
by long-term political conflict and economic decline.

Literature.
The development of literature is at an early stage. It has been held back
by the years of civil war.

Graphic and Performance Arts.
Performing arts often are associated with different ethnic groups
throughout the country.

The State of the Physical and Social Sciences

The physical and social sciences are generally under-developed as a result
of civil instability and conflict and the development of other priorities
centered on national reconstruction. Makerere University is still in
operation but virtually all expatriate staff, once the backbone of the
teaching staff, have been long gone. Little research is currently
undertaken because of a lack of up-to-date books, journals, or computers.

User Contributions:

today is multi cultural in UK.iam Ugandan but i live here in UK. i was asked by my college to search about our culture and am very pleased to find this information. it has been very useful my presentation of my culture. however, i find it unfair the fact that it is said that women and girls are the ones to be in the kitchen. Where i was brought up in my Village of Kabale, it was different because my uncles and my grand dad used to cook aswel. So this was realy had for me to explain to my fellow students as they read this article to. Anyway. am just gona end this by saying thanx for the info

Yes i would like to join my voice with the comments posted above that yes ... its a pretty good article and especially basing on the fact that in Uganda, we have many tribes, each with its own bits of changes here and there ...

You captured it well by picking out the common virtues in your article. Maybe now you should consider witting more but this time breaking it down according to tribes ...

Great article! However there is need to update some information. secondly, its always better to portray two sides of the story e.g. the homestead shown misleads people to think thats how ugandan homes are! Man take a picture of homes in Ntinda, Bugolobi, Muyenga etc

so greatful about the work well done it helps us the late born to learn more about our history.Thankyou however l was requesting that you let us know about the differences today from the past.Thankyou again

This article is so good. Am carrying out research on existing cultural practices and their contribution to addressing climate change impact in Uganda and it has enriched my work.please keep it up because culture is very important and a country without cultural is a dead one. i wish you the best.

Am really appreciate this article due to some good information that I got there, therefore it is so usefully for any Africa community to remind their cultural aspect whenever and wherever they are.
Am humbly appeal to my Africa community who are still not done the-same, so long I am Sudanese by nationality and Nuer by tribe we but I am study in Uganda from BUGEMA UNIVERSITY
my God bless this person who post it in the website.
thank.

this article is so interesting thank you so much for making it.! ( whoever did) i am doing a report for school and this article is super interesting! :) i am a christian so the life and way of the peaople are very different from what i know but is still very cool. i am still wonering what kind of animals there are in Uganda. it would be very helpful to know. thanks again writer people.

This article was very helpful and answered some of the questions I had about Uganda that I couldn't find in ANY books. I am thirteen and writing a childrens book about a girl who visits Uganda. Thank you very much!

Interesting read although I also find this article to be misleading on some levels considering there are are various ethnic groups/tribes in Uganda- over 40 and most of them have their own culture! E.g when it comes to dowry and how many cows are involved, it all depends on the tribe; the westerners have totally different protocols from the northerners or easterners, in some cultures the woman pays and it's not always the man so that's just one example of the many generalizations in the this article. However thanks you for the useful information in other areas.

our cultures needs to be inculturated and evangelized.they need to be evaluated depending on the quality of life.i have appreciated this material and pleas produce more,make them available to the poorest of the poor in Uganda

This is all that i needed in order to continue with ma life;Am a true ugandan who has not barely stayed longer in ma country ,with dis information i can now do and follow perfectly and also try fit in the society ;I appreciate above all for the great job being done by people with the website!

This is a great article but seems to be a little outdated. When I visited Uganda this year even in rural areas some men share household duties. The article also implies that women are very unlikely to succeed following education whereas we found numerous examples of them managing it. Understandably there are major blocks to people in very rural areas being able to get away from their local areas, especially on the islands, but this seems to be predominantly financial.

This article is very helpful to know about the information provided about uganda.
I would suggest to read this because a lot of valuable information are given in here.
I would like to convey my heartiest gratitude to the information providers.
Thank you very much.

i would like to extend my greatest thanks to persons who contributed to this grandismatic piece of information desplayed. it has helped me to be in intarch and informed with uganda's cultural aspests of life even while here in italy. not only that but also in my researches, its a point of reference.

qns. what will be our culture like, in about 15-20 years to come. holdling the facts on western influences?.
thanks God bless.

I very much thank these individuals for their contributions in building 'Uganda' culture, may I request you to continue with more research as to why cross border conflicts emerge over borders and who should be conducted incase such conflicts occure? Because the government never wants to involve the traditional leaders in the processes as a means of peace making while on the other hand most of young Ugandans don't let them be led by truth on territories because of value of the land

Thanks a lot for the article, as a Ugandan i've read some parts with surprise due to the fact that this article is in dire need for updating. I believe that giving this article a time frame would be so helpful, in my case "Uganda Up to 1995" sounds appropriate for the information therein. Otherwise a lot of things have changed like Education advancement...Women's Rights empowerment, Cultural conceptions, tourism, Industrial growth and religious inclination. I believe that will be more useful to the readers and bring out the true picture of Uganda today. Thank you

Thanks so much for the article, but now Uganda has changed a lot. This articles should atleast be given time, when welook at Education advancement and equal rights,culture, tourism,industrial growth and religion has changed This will give more picture of Uganda today.Thanks

I just wanted to know a little about Uganda , But after going through this , I feel as though i have traveled to Uganda . So much of information. Thanks for sharing this kind of message.
Good job ,Great . keep it up.

it is so impressive to land on such an information, many of my friends have been asking me of my place of origin and i have always been telling them that we came from Sudan. it is from this edition that i learned my place of origin and i can be able to explain it better. i therefore personally appreciate the efforts of culture of Uganda forum for the marvelous work done.

uganda is of course the Pearl of AFrica. The culture is God made, it is beautiful and enormous. You just have to come to Uganda to taste and feel the beauty of Uganda - the people are very sweet. the food is the best. The weath is nice and lovely. i am sure that God must have taken his time to create the wonderful environment which is extatic. I love you Uganda. You are simply the best.

Very good information. I have some family there and I'm wondering, why so many young Ugandan men want out of Uganda and don't trust each other or their government. Why are drugs still outdated and medical care deplorable .? In the Kampala hospitals very I'll cancer patients lie on the floors , no nurses care for them, their own family must care for them and even bring their own bedding. If you can't pay, you don't get treated even if critically I'll? What is this ? President yoweri Museveni needs to care that every single Ugandan has the right to clean, safe medical care. If he's grooming his sons to replace himself, this will never get better, Uganda citizens deserve much better then they are getting and only their leader can change this, time to step it up, be what your people can be proud of. ASAID, is millions each year, where's it going? It's 2015 , Uganda is a perfectly beautiful place with the most wonderful traditions and they deserve a better share of this countries wealth to fix infrastructure which is virtually unknown and medical care for all it's people .

Is there Mabala tribe/clan in Uganda? I think all Mabala people from South Africa originate from Bantu region of this country. I like Ugandans. Can someone with Mabala surname tell me their history in Uganda.